The American School of Classical Studies at Athens (ASCSA or the School hereafter) has an interesting, albeit odd, art collection. It comprises mostly oils and watercolors, with a few three-dimensional exceptions, such as Paul Manship’s bronze Actaeon. The card inventory that George Huxley and Mary Lee Coulson created in the late 1980s was replaced by a database I developed in the 1990s, in order to record the whereabouts of the artworks which frequently moved from building to building without any notice.

While some of the objects were bequeathed to the ASCSA by former staff and members, most of the material lacks provenance. My first database was short on content, but the more I delved into the School’s institutional records and collections of personal papers, the more interesting information I discovered about the origin of some of the art pieces. In the case of Amory Gardner’s fine portrait by Anders Zorn, I found that it was a gift from the Groton School in 1938.

The sources of some of the modern paintings (e.g., those by Martyl Langsdorf or Tita Fasciotti) were puzzling at first because I could not connect them with any gifts. The advent of the internet, however, has solved many of these mysteries. Searches for artists’ names revealed that some of the modern paintings were connected with Saint Louis, suggesting that some may have come to the School together with the personal papers of archaeologist George Mylonas, who taught at the Washington University in Saint Louis for several decades. (See “The Spirit of Saint Louis Lives in Athens“.)

Inventorying purposes aside, my preoccupation with the School’s art collection did not stem from an art historical interest but instead from a need to contextualize it: for it seemed that each piece had a biography that continued past the death of its creator and owner(s). With patience, some luck, and a good amount of research in the School’s archives, I soon concluded that there was an interesting story to be told about many of these objects, a story that connected them with men and women once intimately bound up with the ASCSA. Read the rest of this entry »

“Maybe I asked you before, but will you save all my letters, dear, for I may want to use some of the material in them” Zillah Pierce Dinsmoor (1886-1960) reminded her mother a month after her arrival in Greece (Oct. 20, 1910). And because Emma Pierce respected her daughter’s wish, a valuable collection of private correspondence describing the daily life of a young American bride in Athens in the early 20th century has been preserved in the Archives of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens (ASCSA).

This is the second time From the Archivist’s Notebook features an essay about Zillah Dinsmoor. In February 2014, guest author Jacquelyn Clemens published an account of Zillah’s Greek experience, mining information from her letters. “Students and scholars who study at the American School… have often been accompanied by their spouses, significant others, and children who live with them here in Athens. In the early 20th century, Zillah Pierce Dinsmoor was one of these women who traveled to Athens along with her husband, architect William Bell Dinsmoor” wrote Clemens in her introductory paragraph. (Read J. Clemens,”Letters from a New Home. Early 20th Century Athens Through the Eyes of Zillah Dinsmoor“) Barely 24 years old (and away from home for the first time), this fashionable young woman from Massachussets wrote long letters once a week to her mother about her new life in Athens. Read the rest of this entry »

Jack L. Davis, Carl W. Blegen Professor of Greek Archaeology at the University of Cincinnati and a former director of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens (2007-2012), here reviews Erik Larson’s most recent book Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the LUSITANIA, and briefly reflects on the history of the ASCSA during the Great War.

“Today we learned of the sinking of the Lusitania by a German submarine. This horrible crime will have to be paid for by Germany some day.”
Carl W. Blegen, May 9, 1915

I confess that I have long been a fan of any Erik Larson novel, from the time my mother-in-law gave me The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair That Changed America (2003). But did I say novel? His non-fiction tales read like novels, and The Devil is currently being made into a major motion picture (starring Leonardo DiCaprio and directed by Martin Scorsese). For my birthday this year, my mother-in-law Nan hit another homerun: Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania — a terrific (and fast) read. (I finished it in just over two days, one of them on a trans-Atlantic flight, a suitable environment for reading about an oceanic disaster!) Read the rest of this entry »

Jacquelyn H. Clements here contributes to the Archivist’s Notebook a fun essay about living in Greece in the early 1910s. She draws her inspiration from the letters that a young bride, Zillah Pierce Dinsmoor, sent from Athens to her mother in America. Jacquelyn, who is completing her doctoral thesis in Classical Archaeology at Johns Hopkins University, is also an aspiring photographer. She would like to live in Greece in the future and model herself after Alison Frantz, the well-known American archaeologist and photographer. You can look at Jacquelyn’s photography at: http://www.jacquelynclements.com

Students and scholars who study at the American School of Classical Studies at Athens (ASCSA) have often been accompanied by their spouses, significant others, and children who live with them here in Athens. In the early 20th century, Zillah Pierce Dinsmoor was one of these women who traveled to Athens along with her husband, architect William Bell Dinsmoor. During her time abroad, Zillah wrote frequent letters to her mother, Emma E. Pierce, back home in Massachusetts. Zillah’s correspondence from a foreign land provides a unique picture of life in Athens in the early 20th century, and a life at the American School that bears many resemblances, as well as striking differences, to our life here today.

Zillah Pierce Dinsmoor on the balcony of the Director’s House at ASCSA, ca. 1910 (Dinsmoor Family Papers, ASCSA Archives). Click to enlarge

In my Regular year at the ASCSA (2010-2011), I began volunteering in the School’s Archives along with fellow students William Bruce and Katie Lamberto. Our task was to undertake the tedious project of transcribing Zillah’s letters, and like any major archival project, it was faced with some trepidation, at least on my part. Her letters fill five boxes with multiple folders apiece, comprising hundreds of crumbling papers written in florid handwriting, sometimes encircling the borders of the pages when she ran out of room. In two years of transcribing Zillah’s letters, I’ve managed to read about seventy. Her musings are filled with detailed descriptions of daily life in Athens with “Billy,” (as she refers to her husband William) and their travels, both within Greece and also to England, France, and trans-Atlantic voyages. On occasion, I have been treated to photographs, placards, and small sketches as well, in addition to the occasional caret of commentary by Billy, his streamlined penmanship contrasting sharply to Zillah’s flowing cursive. Read the rest of this entry »